Monthly Archives: August 2019

It all started over dinner. Ellen Hyslop was waxing poetic about the Toronto Maple Leafs’ improbable run into the NHL playoffs despite having a young, rebuilding team. Her friends Roslyn McLarty and Jacie deHoop weren’t big sports fans, but they found themselves mesmerized by Hyslop’s story. Her storytelling had a millennial voice and felt like a breath of fresh air compared to today’s typical (meaning, primarily male) sports culture.

Sumorwuo Zaza is tackling one of journalism’s toughest problems: monetizing content. In the old days, people bought physical newspapers and magazines and those revenues — combined with advertising sales — made publishers profitable.

Founder Molly Beck has a plan to make podcasting easy for everyone by making it as uncomplicated as launching a blog. Her startup Messy.fm is an all-in-one podcast production platform that makes it possible for even the most novice podcasters to record, edit, publish, publicize, and monetize podcasts without ever leaving the Messy.fm site — and without buying fancy equipment.

Big news for eyecandylab — a participant in the 2018 Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator, powered by Techstars! The startup just raised a seed round of $1.5 million, less than one year since graduating from the accelerator.

On paper, Erica Williams Simon’s life was flourishing. She regularly appeared on the TV news circuit, speaking on CNN, MSNBC, and Real Time with Bill Maher. She traveled the world spreading messages of empowerment and justice with the Center for American Progress. She had a happy marriage to the love of her life. And did it all by the age of 25.